Salary Scales
ALIA members have access to standard salary scales. These salaries:
- do NOT include superannuation
- cover librarians, library technicians and library assistants across Australia
- are based on the NSW Crown Employees Award.
ALIA has strongly supported the Crown Employees Award in New South Wales (Public Sector - Salaries 2008) as the proper and most accurate wage benchmark for LIS workers. The Crown Employees (Librarians, Library Assistants, Library Technicians and Archivists) Award was reviewed 08/10/2012. The NSW Industrial Relations Commission approves the variations for salaries and salary related allowances in the Award. The last increase was 2.5% granted to take effect on and from 1 July 2019. (There has not been an increase in 2020, due to the NSW public sector wage freeze.)
Work Level Guidelines
ALIA members have access to work level guidelines. These define the roles and work levels for librarians, library technicians and library assistants.
Library Salary Profiles
From December 2019 to March 2020, ALIA ran a survey of salaries across the library and information sector. A report was published outlining the results of the survey: ALIA LIS pay and employment snapshot.
In an accompanying project, a selection of existing library roles (as at July 2020) were analysed and presented in the following profiles, as another point of reference against the salary standards:
It is envisaged that, in the future, similar profiles will be created for other areas of the Australian library and information sector
Casual and Part-time Work
Many ALIA workers are engaged in work that is short-term, or for limited hours per week. Much of this work is incorrectly categorised as casual work. Genuine casual work is irregular. Employees who work regular hours should be paid as permanent part-time workers accruing, pro rata, all entitlements that apply to full-time workers. Casual employees have no guarantee of continuing work and each period of employment is legally separate. For that reason, casual employees may not accrue entitlements to annual and sick leave. In recognition of the irregularity and possible non-accrual of leave, a loading of at least 25% of wages is recommended by ALIA to be paid in lieu of these entitlements.
Calculation of hourly rates for casual workers is done by dividing the annual salary attaching to particular work and dividing it by 52.2 weeks per year, then by number of hours worked. A 25% loading is then added.
Other Resources